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The Benefits of Bento: Millennial Kitchen Showdown

Dec 01, 2017

Mairead Kelly is an ex-glutton turned health conscious writer who, every once in awhile, can still be found eating dinner over the kitchen sink. Follow her posts to stay up-to-date on her journey into the world of quality lunch gear, and her interactions with folks who are transforming the way we think about the ethical, environmental, and cultural dimensions of eating, health, and nourishment.

If you’ve stopped by the blog before, you may have read about my familial roots in something, anything but vegetables, and the questionable meal choices I faced as a kid. Since those days, I’ve come a long way from sodium-rich Chinese takeout and sad, stale pizza crusts, cooking most meals for myself—and happily so. But when it comes to a culinary repertoire, I stay in my lane.

In the effort to break away from a drab routine of kale, rice, kale, rice, I got together with Lauren O’Neil, graphic designer and all-around cool lady, to think outside of our regional lenses of taste and texture, and try our hand at making something tasty, balanced, and quick.

For inspiration, we turned to chef and nutritionist Megumi Fujii’s cookbook, Ten Minute Bento, a collection of 72 mouth-watering Japanese box lunch recipes that are easy to make, satiate hunger, and satisfy an ever-expanding palette. In the spirit of culinary expedition and my own tendency to overthink even the simplest dishes, Lauren brought along a family-sized bag of chips just in case things truly went awry in the kitchen. Spoiler alert: they totally didn’t.